Time for a comic relief from all the seriousness this place has descended to. The typewriter monkeys have been complaining. A bit of levity would do them good. So here’s a bit of humor and silliness. It’s one of my favorite stand-up comics, the incomparable Eddie Izzard. Since I mentioned typewriter monkeys, this excerpt from one of his shows is appropriate. To fully appreciate it, it is good to know a bit of French. I understand only a bit — un peu — of French. Mostly safe for work but he does use the occasional 4-letter word.
Author: Atanu Dey
Economist.
Coming up: SSRS is an Asshole
Pardon my French but Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is an asshole. He sent his running-dog lawyers to shut down criticism. I will write about that in a bit.
“An Eye for an Eye” is Deterrence Against Violence
The concept of deterrence is the credible commitment to retaliation by one party to convince another party to not initiate force. If one party can convincingly persuade another party that any act of unprovoked violence will be met with equal or greater violence, that would constitute effective deterrence. The assumption is that both parties are rational. Here rational is defined as apprehending a situation accurately and acting in one’s own self-interest. Gandhi did not understand this simple idea, being blinded by his admiration of the Christian bilge about “turning the other cheek”.
Gayatri Jayaraman (@Gayatri__J) wrote this on twitter:
“an eye for an eye will leave the world blind” – Mahatma Gandhi. Why ahimsa is the only force that can win us our wars
Continue reading ““An Eye for an Eye” is Deterrence Against Violence”
Guns are Instruments, Not Sentient Volitional Beings
In yesterday’s Ask Me Anything, Abhay Rajan asked what I thought of the Second Amendment, no doubt prompted by the horrific mass shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday night/Sunday morning at 2 AM Eastern. So far there are 50 people dead, and some from the critically injured may push that number up. The dead terrorist has been identified as Omar Mateen, a supporter of the Islamic State.
The 2nd amendment to the US constitution says, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” [See the Cornell University Law School page on the 2nd Amendment for a brief discussion of it.]
My view on “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” is based on the principle that people should have the right to protect themselves against aggression. My ethical and moral position is that initiating aggression or coercion is almost[1] never justified, and one is perfectly justified to resist, violently if necessary, anyone who initiates force against one. The right to bear arms is therefore instrumental in keeping the peace by deterring those who would initiate violence.
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Open Thread — Ask Me Anything
Been a while since the last open thread. Feel free to ask questions, or make suggestions.
Here’s a nice picture. It’s from the 2014 National Geographic Photo Contest. A smoke column billows above the forest fire in Banff National Park, one of Canada’s most beautiful places.
Update Jun 18th: Responses to the questions asked in the comments below are here.
Speaking of Freedom of Speech
“If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led like sheep to the slaughter.” –George Washington
The importance of the freedom of speech is underestimated by most people.
George Washington stressed the instrumental role of the freedom of speech — as a defense against oppression. But freedom of speech, like the right to be left alone, is also something of value in and of itself, even if there was no possibility of being oppressed.
I wrote this piece for India Current (June 2016 issue). I reproduce it here, for the record. Continue reading “Speaking of Freedom of Speech”
What’s wealth and where does it come from?
10 million years ago, there was no wealth on earth
Wealth comes from human action. It does not exist in nature although the ingredients from which wealth is derived through human action does exist in nature. A simple example illustrative example is hydrocarbons in the ground (coal, crude oil, natural gas, etc.) They simply exist in nature. Whether it is useful or not depends on the user. Primitive life forms on earth had no use for it. Dinosaurs did not dig up coal to use as an energy source. Even primitive hominids had no use for coal. Though coal existed for millions of years, it did not become wealth until modern humans figured out only a few thousand years ago that it was great fuel for fires.
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Cornering the market for spelling bee championship
Well, what do you know? Once again Indian American kids have won the spelling bee. We’ll come to that in a bit. But first, here’s Akash Vukoti of San Angelo TX, just six years old and was the youngest of 280 contestants of the 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee finals. He’s been at it since he was 2 years old. He’s pretty amazing. Watch this short video of him on a sneak peak of the NBC primetime show, “Little Big Shots,” which premiered in March. The little guy is full of beans and is an absolute delight.
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Two First Amendments to two Constitutions
The First Amendment to the US Constitution is 45 words long. The full text reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Just by the way, the first 10 amendments to the US constitution is collectively known as the “Bill of Rights.” They were all ratified on Dec 15, 1791.
The First Amendment to the Indian constitution was introduced by Jawaharlal “Cha-cha” Nehru and was enacted in June 1951. The full text of the amendment is below.
It is not for the fainthearted. You ask why? Because here’s a very brief extract from the more than 1700 words.
No law in force in the territory of India immediately before the commencement of the Constitution which is consistent with the provisions of article 19 of the Constitution as amended by sub-section (1) of this section shall be deemed to be void, or over to have become void, on the ground only that, being a law which takes away or abridges the right conferred by sub-clause (a) of clause (1) of the said article, its operation was not saved by clause (2) of that article as originally enacted.
Please do check out full text below.
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Mr Katju, here be dragons
Mr Katju, who is a retired supreme court judge, provided his insights into “abolishing unemployment in India” on social media yesterday. According to him, Soviet Russia solved that problem by “raising the purchasing power of the masses, and thereby rapidly expanding the economy and consequently abolishing unemployment.”
Mr Katju explains in subsequent comments how the scheme is supposed to work. It’s about reducing prices to increase “purchasing power”, he says. I don’t think he understands what prices or purchasing power means.
I have appended at the end of the post a few screen captures of Mr Katju’s submission to facebook and a couple of comments from his readers.
Mr Katju notes the steps the Soviet government took included the steady lowering of commodity prices, stepping up production, and the creation of jobs that abolished unemployment. He further notes that while the US was suffering the Great Depression of 1929, the Soviet economy was “rapidly expanding.” While not endorsing the Soviet method for India, he says that India should do something so “we can raise the purchasing power of the Indian masses and thereby rapidly expand the Indian economy, which is the only way of abolishing unemployment in India.”
He ends by writing, “The central point, and therefore the main problem before India, is how to raise the purchasing power of the masses? Do we follow the method of socialist countries, or some other method?” Continue reading “Mr Katju, here be dragons”
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 